Name of Organisation, Location city, Team Strength

Application Process with contact details

Application process is quite simple, you simply need to find the Geographical region that you want to work in and search for the respective contact details on the official website of Hindustan Times.

In my case that was the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand region for which the resident editor is Ms. Sunita Aron saron@hindustantimes.com

A simple mail with your SOP and CV would be enough as a prerequisite application for the Internship. Do mention your area of Interest: eg. Journalism, Editorial etc.

Duration of internship and timings

20th December, 2015 – 20th January, 2016.

Can be adjusted once you start working, if you are free to work for some more days and love the ambiance and the work atmosphere, contact the editor, he/she would love to extend your working days for sure.

First impression, first day formalities, infrastructure

On the very first day we were made to sit in the waiting lobby, till the arrival of the entire team along with all the interns.

To my surprise, I was told to report at 10:00 am by the time the entire team arrived it was already 11:00 am.

By the time everyone arrived, almost all the English dailies were given for reading from Times of India to The Hindu to The Indian Express, to review the best thing about them.

The time everyone arrived, we were introduced to each other. First day was quiet easy on us we were simply briefed about our roles and were asked as to what our areas of interest on which we would like to do any particular story.

Over that we were introduced to the different sections of the newspaper like HT City, HT Education, HT Magazine, The Sunday Special Coverage and others.

The most interesting part was the food area which one of the senior introduced us to, here we could get Coffee, Lemon tea, Green Tea, Chai, Snacks, obviously free of cost!

The infrastructure of the office was quite good, we all were allotted individual desks with desktops that were connected to an internal server with Internet facility and an interconnected unlimited memory storage.

So basically whatever you store on your computer will be displayed on all the computers in the storage drive, don’t you dare store anything controversial! 😛

Initially we were hesitant to use social networks but once the seniors started using we got the feel that the scene is pretty much chilled out as long as you complete your tasks on time.

Main tasks

Normally interns are handed over the responsibility of the city section i.e. HT City and if your interest permits than HT Magazine as well as HT Education, in the City case you will be handed over the details of various events happening in the city and you would have to take photographs from the common storage and write a 200 word article on it.

Apart from that if you have any specific topic that you want to research upon and publish it either in the main book, City or Magazine you may discuss it with the editor and if he/she gives a nod then you may go ahead with it.

If there is any big event in the city or if there is any HT sponsored event and your luck is moderately good then you may get to meet and talk to some of your favorite Celebrities or politicians and get a selfie clicked and the interview published.

A review meeting is conducted around 1:00 pm where all the members gather and discuss anything that we had missed out the previous day that might have come up in Times or Hindu or Express.

Everyone is supposed to share at least one idea of story and any improvement that they may suggest.

Then the meeting is concluded by the editor by taking a note of progress on the stories that different people had suggested to him in the past.

PS: All that you write and store on the common storage, is reviewed by either your seniors or the editor himself before being published.

Work environment and people

The work environment is chill, if you are not piling up your tasks and working way before deadline, you will certainly enjoy the work normally if you are not engrossed in work too much and want to chill, go grab some free bites and a drink i.e. coffee or anything and chat with your colleagues, provided they are as free as you are.

At times if you put up some horrible research and write an out of nowhere article then the editor will personally call you to his cabin and he might give you a nice trashing, so write anything that you can provide sources for and a basic decency in the department of grammar is expected from you.

Normally when the day’s tasks are over way before time, that all the colleagues gather around a certain desk and bitching sessions are conducted, and the venue for the next weekly parties are decided.

Best things

The best thing I liked was the office environment, it was not monotonous, everyday was a new challenge, a new topic, the freedom of carrying out research on anything or everything, you may carry out stories on all those social evils or flaws of the government agencies that you may have been complaining about since ages.

The latent benefits that came along being a member of the HT family were free entry to all those fancy corporate parties, passes for those 5- star new year parties, you get to meet and talk to the who’s who of the country and ask anything to them.

You may go to the police station, which I avoided lately and ask the SHO regarding the progress of any case you feel like being substantial.

Bad things

Though a substantial amount of freedom was given to everyone but even in that case we were supposed to avoid some controversial topics, for eg.

Once I attended a call from some AAP volunteer, who were protesting for the Sugarcane farmers’s plight against the mill owners, I went to the editor with the same information, the editor asked me to avoid the story since one of a major shareholder in the newspaper agency is the owner of a chain of sugar mills in that region.

We were not supposed to criticize any individual on paper for whatever he/she has stated in a conversation either direct or telephonic until and unless we can prove it.

Stipend

None

Biggest Lessons

The Intricacies of working in a media house, the social responsibility that comes along with being a journalist, you may enlighten the people with your knowledge of law as you are given a chance to portray where the laws are being openly disobeyed by anyone.

The biggest lesson, I learned was that things work in an altogether different way then we perceive them to be, there is a hell lot of back story behind everything that we read out, our knowledge is based upon what we read in newspapers, but what we don’t know is exponentially more than what we know.

Any Other Thing

Newspaper, specifically English dailies are an excellent opportunity for First year students, they get to improve their writing skills, theirs grammatical flaws, they get to know the point as to where they are supposed to use formal vocabulary and where to be informal.

The application of law in practical life is the biggest aspect that these kind of internships teach you.

Overall Rating

9

Accommodation

You may easily find a PG in the region. I did not require one personally since it is my home town so, I was staying at my home and commuting to work daily.

Office Timings

The official timing that was allotted to me was 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, but the timings are pretty much relaxed as evident by the fact that I used to arrive at 11:00 am and used to leave by 5:00 pm almost everyday.

Timings are relaxed as long as you can complete the allotted tasks on time. As the words might suggest you might have to work beyond timings as well if you are lagging behind your targets, the office remains open for almost 24 hours, just in case if you want to adjust your timings too much.

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